The last generation of consoles wasn't exactly kind to JRPGs; for as much as genre shined--or perhaps peaked--in the 32-bit era, the early years of the PS2, XBox and GameCube gave us nothing but a shoddy lineup of lukewarm titles with an endless supply of randomly-generated dungeons. These systems were eventually home to some great RPGs that haven't yet been topped by anything on the current generation of hardware--like Dragon Quest VIII and Final Fantasy XII--but we had to wait until said consoles were on their last legs before we got anything worth playing. But amongst all of those shoddy Shining Force derivates and tri-Ace travesties, a certain trilogy sat quietly in the background, ignored by most who (rightfully) assumed it was just another exercise in inanity. This mystery series I speak of is Shadow Hearts, which may in fact represent the last time a developer actually had fun with the JRPG genre.
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